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| Mick Jagger |
Glastonbury 2014:
The 100 best Glastonbury performances ever
From the Rolling Stones to Beyoncé, here's our countdown of Glastonbury's greatest ever acts
100. The Wurzels, 2000
The Bandstand stage is tiny, on a concourse in the market area, but given that these West Country hitmakers of the Seventies are patron saints of cider-drinking, with many a song on the subject, their jovial hoedown pulled a crowd from miles around.
99. Kerri Chandler, 2013
Among the night fields there’s a tattered tenement building with a New York cab sticking out of the roof. Its creators, Block9, invited the cream of original US house DJs, most especially Kerri Chandler, to play all night long.
98. Ozric Tentacles, 1992
The Ozrics are a Somerset space-rock gaggle, fixtures of the free festival circuit in the late Eighties and early Nineties. They played the NME stage that year but their acid-fried jamming was perfectly suited to the more illicit Green Lights Oasis stage.
97. The Sandals, 1993
Now lost to history, The Sandals were briefly a big thing. Their hypnotic blend of percussion and indie-jazz was never better than when tropical monsoon heat was punctured by a thunderstorm during their best song, We Wanna Live.
96. Youssou N’Dour, 1992
Youssou N’Dour’s eclectic brand of the Senegalese musical style mbalax was a surprise hit, as ravers, hippies and indie kids congregated in the Jazz World field to enjoy a splash of solar-powered African optimism.
95. Spiritualised, 1993
Jason Pierce’s gospel-tinted drone-rockers have played regularly at Glastonbury but their 1993 set, expanding mesmerisingly on the previous year’s spaced out Laser Guided Melodies album, swept many a tired mind off into the cosmos.
94. Chic, 2013
Nile Rodgers’ funk showcase was an obvious choice for a frothier, sexier alternative to Arctic Monkeys on the Pyramid. So it proved, with the crowd’s a cappella version of Daft Punk’s Get Lucky – which he co-wrote – as an encore.
93. Melanie, Pyramid, 1971
The sappy and sometimes off-key American strummer entirely nailed the guileless, utopian, hippy dreaming of the first proper Glastonbury, as can be seen in Nicholas Roeg’s very much of-its-time documentary Glastonbury Fayre.
92. TCR Allstars, 2008
Rennie Pilgrem’s breakbeat ravers gave an object lesson in how Glastonbury midafternoon can hold its own with Ibiza, aided by multiple Frisbees distributed by now-forgotten Australian dance-pop act Sneaky Sound System.
91. Isaac Hayes, 2002
From the sublime to the ridiculous, the denim-leisurewear-clad funk legend sent himself up while seriously enjoying his back catalogue, running the gamut from a storming Shaft to the very silly South Park hit Chocolate Salty Balls.
90. Last Shadow Puppets, 2008
A ’secret’ appearance by the side project of Miles Kane and Arctic Monkey Alex Turner. The string section they took on tour was absent, but Jack White was notably present on guitar for one song.
